It’s year two of The Week in Star Wars and we’ve got some big news for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, a review for LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens, news from Han Solo’s solo movie and more…
Kicking things off this week with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and it was revealed by Kathleen Kennedy that some big changes are coming to the franchise – including the removal of the iconic opening crawl. Blasphemy, surely? “The crawl and some of those elements live so specifically within the ‘saga’ films that we are having a lot of discussion about what will define the [stand-alone] Star Wars Stories separate and apart from the saga films,” Kennedy told EW. “So we’re right in the middle of talking about that.” Not having the crawl would help separate the spin-offs from the main timeline, but – personally – it would feel like it’s missing something. I talked about it at great length on the latest episode of the Flickering Myth Podcast…
…Looking past Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to the next few films on the schedule and it has been revealed that panels for both Star Wars: Episode VIII and the Han Solo spin-off will be held at Star Wars Celebration with the directors in attendance. Johnson, Lord and Miller will appear alongside Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, Sr. Vice President of Development Kiri Hart, and Star Wars Story Group executive Pablo Hidalgo on Sunday, July 17th’s Future Filmmakers Panel for what is being described as “an informal discussion”. Other guests set for Celebration include Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), Ray Park (Darth Maul) and host Warwick Davis (Wicket), while Dave Filoni is also set to unveil the third season of Star Wars Rebels…
…Speaking of the Han Solo solo movie (not easy to say), and the latest draft of the script has been heavily praised. Like, really praised. “[It’s] by far the best Star Wars script, and one of the best scripts period, that I have ever read,” said Lucasfilm concept artist Iain McCaig. “I laughed, I cried, I did all the things you should do when reading a good script. You’re in for a treat…”
…Taking a step back for a moment, and Avatar director James Cameron was asked recently about Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and he was not kind. “[George Lucas] is a friend of mine and I don’t want to say too much about [The Force Awakens] because I also have a lot of respect for J.J. Abrams and I want to see where they’re taking it next. I have to say that I felt that George’s group of six films had more innovative visual imagination, and this film was more of a retrenchment to things you had seen before and characters you had seen before. And it took a few baby steps forward with new characters. So for me the jury’s out. I want to see where they go with it.” Mate, it was better than Avatar let’s be honest…
…Star Wars Rebels executive producer Simon Kinberg has been discussing the animated show’s integration into the wider Star Wars universe, as well as teasing the possibility of further tie-ins to future movies. “I’m very excited,” said Kinberg. “I think part of the fun of the way they’re building the universe is that it is interconnected between the different movies and even beyond the movies … It’s something that was true in comic books going back, the way that you’d have interconnections between characters and stories. Even sometimes from DC to Marvel. I like the way that those stories are told in the larger tapestry.” You can read more here…
…Back in May, fans of Disney Infinity received some bad news with the announcement that Disney has decided to pull the plug on the game due to lower than expected sales, which led to the cancellation of a number of unreleased figures, including Hera from Star Wars Rebels; check out a look at the unreleased figure here…
…Hasbro is set to expand its Black Series collectible action figure range this month with two new figures of Kylo Ren and Obi-Wan Kenobi, which will be available during Star Wars Celebration Europe and the San Diego Comic-Con International, and you can check them out here…
…Bioware and Lucasfilm have announced the release of the next chapter in the Star Wars: The Old Republic – Knights of the Fallen Empire storyline. Titled The Gemini Deception, this raises the stakes for the Outlander as he prepares for the ultimate showdown, with players must leading their alliance in an assault against the Eternal Empire by working alongside the mysterious and deadly droid Scorpio to infiltrate a Zakuulan warship…
…And following a two character featurettes for Finn and Kylo Ren, we’ve got our review of LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Flickering Myth’s gaming expert Kris Wall went down to The Shard in London to play the game, and here’s what he had to say: “LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a labour of love from Travellers Tales, it’s a Star Wars game clearly made by huge fans of Star Wars with a deep love and respect of the source material, and that love and respect fills every single second of this brilliant adventure, whilst also raising the benchmark to grand new heights for all LEGO games to come. It’s incredibly hard not to be overcome by sheer overwhelming joy and elation while playing this game, and I found that for the majority of my time with LEGO The Force Awakens, I was sat with a goofy grin plastered across my face. I cannot recommend LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens highly enough, this is fun on an intergalactic scale…”
…And finally, here are your comic book previews for the week. First up is Star Wars: Han Solo #2: Han Solo has entered the space race of his dreams – the DRAGON VOID! But he’s on an undercover mission – to find a traitor within the Rebellion. Teamed with Wookiee warrior Chewbacca, will they be able to find the mole before trouble finds them? Here’s the preview for Star Wars: Poe Dameron #4: The next stop on Poe’s mission is Grakkus the Hutt… But Grakkus has been in Republic Prison for years. You know what that means — POE DIRECTLY TO JAIL! And to cap things off, here’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens #2: The saga continues! Desert scavenger Rey and ex-stormtrooper Finn are being pursued by the evil First Order! But can they escape Jakku in an old “hunk of junk” YT-1300 freighter? And what new threats will they find in a galaxy far, far away?
That’s all for this week – may The Force be with you.
Order Star Wars: The Force Awakens via Amazon UK or Amazon US
Luke Owen
